Sports

Bjornsen siblings ski to medals in final race at national championships

With medals on the line, Sadie Bjornsen and Erik Bjornsen, Alaska Pacific University's talented sister-brother duo, figured in a pair of fantastic finishes in a national championship ski race Thursday in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Both went home with medals. Sadie claimed bronze in the women's 30-kilometer, mass-start freestyle race, and Erik captured silver in the men's 50-K.

Erik, 23, was the fourth man across the finish line but earned the second-place medal because the top two finishers weren't Americans. Only Americans are eligible to win medals at the U.S. cross-country championships.

Canada's Ivan Babikov won the men's race by 52 seconds in 1 hour, 57 minutes, 6.2 seconds.

The next four skiers were separated by 2.6 seconds.

Norway's Rune Oedegaard led that group in 1:57:58.1. Next was Colorado's Noah Hoffman (1:57:58.6), followed by Bjornsen (1:57:59.0) and Canada's Graeme Killick (1:58:00.7).

Hoffman, the top American, was awarded gold. Bjornsen took silver, and the bronze went to Minnesota's Brian Gregg (1:59:00.5), who was eighth across the line but was the third American finisher.

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In the women's race, Americans grabbed the top five places -- and three of them were Alaskans.

Caitlin Gregg of Minnesota dominated to win by more than two minutes in 1:42:46.9. Liz Stephen of Vermont earned silver in 1:45:27.7.

Then came a trio of APU skiers, with Sadie Bjornsen, 25, leading the way in 1:46:40.9. She held off two of her APU teammates, edging fourth-place Rosie Brennan (1:46:48.7) by about eight seconds and fifth-place Chelsea Holmes (1:46:52.6) by about 12 seconds.

Two other Alaska women made it into the top 10 -- seventh-place Rosie Frankowski of APU (1:48:37) and ninth-place Caitlin Patterson of Anchorage (1:50:53.3). Patterson trains in Vermont.

Two other Alaskans cracked the top 15 in the men's race -- 13th-place Lex Treinen (2:01:53.0) and 15th-place Scott Patterson (2:02:35.5).

In the 25-K race for junior boys, APU's Thomas O'Harra claimed the silver medal in 1:09:38.1. He was more than a minute behind the winner.

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